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CLS A340-500 and Project Magenta |
Since a couple of days I have the new A340-500 of CLS (Commercial Level Simulations) installed on my system. I have been waiting for this bird (and of course the A340-600) for a while, as I have spent quite a number of hours on Thai's 340's, particularly the -600 going to and from Europe. Also, my new overhead is the -600 type, so I had to absolutely have these two.
Lets take the A340-500 for a ride on Thai's flight TG600 which is leaving Bangkok at 08:00 to Hong Kong (VHHH) and at the same time look at the interaction between the plane and project Magenta. Yes, yes, of course I know its normally flown with a B747-400, but today the A340-500 has been substituted.
While doing this, I will try to find out how the model behaves when flying with Project Magenta.
As far as installation goes, I have only modified the panel, substituting the panel that comes with the installer by the standard PM panel and WideView. No changes have been made to the .cfg file or the model. And to make it clear, all panel pictures and functions shown below are from Project Magenta and not from the panel included in the CLS package, I have never looked at it.
My conclusions and some observations about fuel consumption are now at the end of this page (...sorry)
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Parked at gate 26 at VTBD |
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| Model Selection | Blank Init Screen |
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| The PFD is cold, so we push "Align IRS" on the MCDU |
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| first we enter our route pair into the scratchpad | and then transfer it with RSK1 |
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| our intended FL for this route FL390 (most of the time), I mostly do not care about the CI so I put 900 | If we push F-Plan we get this - now we need a route.... |
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| I use RouteFinder for the routing and this is what it came up with, which pretty well is the route normally flown between VTBD and VHHH |
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When we push LSK2 (next to VTBD) we get this. Press LSK1 and select the RWY for departure. 99 % of the cases it will be 21R at VTBD, so we select that one |
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| these are the departure routes available for RWY 21R at VTBD, unfortunately, the transitions are not shown in the present version of the MCDU and the result will be that we will end up with a SELKA transition- never mind | if we look at the charts for VTBD, we find that we will need the GRANT2 SID, with a KRT transition to reach the first route point of the RouteFinder plan |
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| after having pressed RSK6 above we had SELKA on the route page and we now plan the continuation to KRT by entering KRT into the scratchpad and pushing RSK3 | from KRT, we start entering the airways and waypoint as per the flightplan, enter into the scratchpad then press RSK2 |
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| once are done with this and end up at SIKOU, we can delete the flight plan discontinuity and then have .... | our complete flightplan. As the SID from the database did not automatically insert the first waypoint, TIGER, I have inserted it manually |
OK, now we have to start thinking about fuel and weather. For the fuel, we should first determine, how long our flight is going to be.... Scheduled flight time is 2:45h. Lets check this. I use AS6 for the weather interface, but to calculate the flying time it first needs a flightplan.
To get this, we use the MCDU again...
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| we press init 2 times and can then save the flightplan in PM's own format as well as in FS9 format | In AS we use the "New Route" function and then import the flight plan |
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| Note that I have entered RCTP (Taipei) as an alternate and the cruise speed of approx 475 kts. The cruise altitude is read from the flightplan. |
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| and here is the result - the flying time with the prevailing winds at FL390 would be about 1:50 minutes. AS does not really calculate different speeds for climb and descent, so lets call it approx. 2:30 mins. |
OK, now we have figured out that we have about 2:30 hours flying time, including climb and descent. Add about 1 hour for fooling around at VHHH if we cannot land there, plus 1:30 for going to our alternate at RCTP, plus holding and legal reserve... I make it about 5:30 or so. On long range cruise I have figured out a cruise consumption of about 8 tons per hours but for this short trip it is going to be more....
So here is my loading
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this is fuel |
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I just left it as it was - assuming a full house |
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leading to my total ZFW |
Ok now that we have loaded the fuel and know how many pax and how much freight we have on board, we can continue with our preparations in the cockpit
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| Insert the ZFW of the aircraft at RSK1 (you can get this
from the fuel page in the sim and enter any route reserves that you want
at RSK3
Note: the ZFW here and the one shown in the W & B do not correspond - they are from two different flights <G> - so do not get upset .... |
then go to the performance page and enter your planned flap settings and the V-speeds - these will be shown on the PFD. You can just hit LSK1 - 3 two times each in succession and PM will calculate those for you. |
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set initial climb speed, altitude and QNH |
Departure time is approaching and we are ready to push and start
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| Pushing back - notice the push truck <G> |
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| Pushback complete - we are almost on the centerline <G> |
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| No 4 is already running - No 2 is spooling up | all 4 running and fuel is checked |
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| check flight controls (see the speed brake), flaps are set for take-off | we set the FD to on, QNH is set, speed is set, t/o hdg is set and the initial altitude is set to 11000ft (which happens to be the transition altitude at VTBD) |
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Taxi to the runway - careful in those turns <G> |
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| waiting in line ... |
| When we are finally No1 at the holding point.... | |
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strobe and landing lights on, seatbelt signs should be on since long time ago |
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WX radar on |
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XPD, check correct squawk, and TA on (off course the ALT-RPTG switch should also be on) |
| Switchology |
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lined up for take off |
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just lifting off - Notice that the frequency for the first VOR (KRT) has been automatically set by the MCDU |
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gear is going up (in transition) |
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turn left at TIGER |
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climbing on AP inbd GRANT |
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passing 10000ft, inbd Grant, landing lights off, and since the weather is good, we let the pax move around |
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passing FL320 climbing at mach 0.80 |
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leveling off at FL390 |
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cruising at FL390 and mach 0.82. The fuel flow averages 8 tons/hour
Frequency for NAV1 has been changed to SAV - KRT on NAV2 is already out of range |
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| an overview of the flight from FS Flightkeeper | |
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| as we enter Chinese airspace on our route, we have to adopt to their level system, which means on this hdg we descend to 11400 m or FL374 | |
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we have switched on the metric display on the PFD (actual value below and target above) and want to be at 11400M at ASSAD |
Ok, time to prepare for the approach
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first, we get the actual and forecast for VHHH through AS winds are generally from the west, visibility is typical Hong Kong and the lowest clouds are at 3000ft - good enough for us.
Landing to the W in Hong Kong is generally on RWY25R |
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since we are coming from there, we will fly a SIKOU1B approach, notice the limitations |
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| we call the arrival data of VHHH and select RWY25R | luckily, the database has the SIKOU1B STAR, so we select that one |
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| it has put another SIKOU in there for us, so we delete the second one and get rid of the F-Plan discontinuity | then we can set about entering the altitude and speed limitations for the different waypoints on the STAR - here FL180 at BAKER (see the chart) |
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| The ILS approach for RWY25R with the TD feed in has RIVER as the intercept point, so I have inserted that one too |
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approaching CORAL, still at FL374. The TD is shown at ROBIN, where we should actually be at FL260... |
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here we are approaching ROBIN, just at FL260 as requested in a managed descent which worked quite well |
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descending to FL130 - prediction for MANGO is still FL134 |
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inbd TD for 5500ft, speed is 250 kts and rate of descent is only 1000ft - this thing is really difficult to get down without using the spoilers |
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passing 4700ft on a HDG of 340, LOC and GS are active Terrain display has come on too and is cluttering the ND |
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turning left to intercept |
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intercepting the glide slope |
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gear is going down, flaps are down |
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established on the ILS |
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seen from the cockpit |
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Of course, this was an automatic landing, how should I take all those pics otherwise <G>
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leaving the rwy |
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shutting down stuff |
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Parked at the gate - engines spooling down Notice the remaining fuel and of course the fuel used figures on the lower EICAS are wrong <G> |
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| parked at one of the usual TG gates... |
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| this is how FS Flightkeeper has seen the approach |
Here are my observations from the 2 1/2 flights I made to complete whatever comes below (Note: I do not refer to FCOM for this, I do not have the A340-500/600 one , only for the -300):
1. Climb with flaps down seems very sluggish, it takes very long time to accelerate to flaps up speed, similarly, drag with flaps down on approach seems unreasonably high
2. On an open climb (with speed set to green dot and altitude selected) most of the times the A/C starts to hunt the pitch - or the speed - resulting in quite serious oscillations. I then resort to setting the rate of climb manually, which works fine. Funny thing is that this does not happen all the time. I have not yet found out what starts it. Climb rate as such seems more or less realistic.
3. On an ILS-approach I sometimes observe a similar behavior - A/C is hunting speed which leads to serious oscillations on the approach. Most of the time I resort to switching off the AT and control thrust manually, then it works fine.
I have set the A/T factors like this :
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If I set them > 100 % things get worse. The throttle responds rather slowly |
4. Fuel Consumption:
On the short flight from VTBD to VHHH with a block time of 3:00 hours and a cruise speed of m 0.82 the hourly consumption came to 7.2 tons
Long Range Cruise: I have done one flight from KLAX to VTBD (in real time, no acceleration) in the meantime with a block time of 17:28 hours, cruising at FL340, 360, 380 and finally 400, mostly at m 0.81.
FL380/0.81 fuel consumption approx. 2000 kg per engine
FL400/0.81 fuel consumption approx. 1700 - 1800 kg per engine, at m 0.8 the fuel consumption is between 1500 - 1700 kg per engine
Leaving with full tanks, the remaining fuel was 880 kgs (!) at the gate - hardly legal <G>. Which calculates to an average fuel burn of about 8 t/hour.
The last time I took this flight in real life, we had to divert to VTCC due to bad visibility at VTBD and including some holding before the divert, the total flight time was 18 hours...
This time the descent and approach were flown without a hitch from the autothrottle, even final approach at Vref +10 were perfect.
Next flight (this one flown with a lot of accelerated periods, but otherwise trying to go by the book):
VTBD - KJFK (TG790), A340-500
Take off data:
| Empty weight | 167882 kg |
| Payload | 32895 kg |
| Fuel | 139380 kg |
| Gross Weight | 340156 kg |
| Cruise Phase | Cruise Level and Speed | Total Weight |
| Initial climb to FL310 | 320 kts (green dot) m 0.78 | 330 tons |
| Initial cruise | FL310/m 0.80 | 328 tons |
| Cruise 1 | FL335 (China)/m 0.80 | 320 tons |
| Cruise 2 | FL364 (Russia)/m 0.8 | 280 tons |
| Cruise 3 | FL390 (leaving Russia) | 257 tons |
| Cruise 4 | FL410/m 0.80 (getting very close to coffins corner...) | 240 tons |
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Cruise 5
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with about 1900NM to go at FL410 and m 0.8, MCDU gives this prediction:
looks like we might have to go for the alternate ... now WHAT was the alternate ??? CYYZ, can we even make that one ? |
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| Descent and Landing | well after some wrangling and route-cutting we made it into KJFK in very bad weather too - with 3.22 tons remaining on the blocks - again not legal .... |
Either I am doing something not right or there is something wrong with the FDE on this bird - it should make these flights without problems - TG and SQ are doing them every day... These were 17:19 block hours at an average fuel burn of 7,67 tons per hour ... I do not really know how much they are supposed to burn - the -300 should be at approx 7 tons/hour.
5. As far as the visual model is concerned, well, see the pics on this page, it is makes me want to fly in outside view all the time and is well worth the little money I spent for it...
These are my most immediate comments - more might follow when I get to know these two birds better...